The Environment

The Starwars model books are good for the lower end of that age group. Mostly biodegradable.

Money.

Wooden elastic band gun.

A board game - maybe exploding kittens.

SAK.

Shimano 105.

what about a penknife?

https://www.explodingkittens.com/ looks cool.

If you'd met my family you'd know that gifting weapons is a silly idea.

They're probably already tooled up with bowie knives and shit. I was when I was their age.

#notallaustrians

If you want something for the adults Telestration After Dark is good. There is a non-adult version, but I think something is lost in the topics.

That could be fun for the adults but I'm not buying for those bastards. :)

We've got some clothes, some books and I'll have a think about the card games. What's SAK?

a knife

Swiss Army knives are $$$ (and way less impressive than the machete I used to run around with). I never got one when I was a kid, so they're not getting one from me.

https://youtu.be/AfGLTqX-mfg

Toddington reservoir report.

https://qz.com/882078/greenpeace-says-that-binge-watching-netflix-nflx-and-amazon-prime-amzn-is-bad-for-the-environment/

"Netflix scored a D, mainly because it doesn’t regularly publish data on its greenhouse-gas emissions"

They use or used AWS, and they say... stuff..
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/sustainability/

Yeah but https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/what-is-energy-denial/

Anybody signed up to these guys for carbon off-setting?

https://www.ecosia.org/ ?

Am using that, and their mobile browser app too. It's fine except:

1. search results are slightly less good than Google in rare circumstances
   
2. Android app doesn't play nicely with Lastpass
   
   

But apparently I've planted 50 trees so that's nice

apparently I've planted 50 trees so that's nice

That's the bit I'm wary of. They seem to be claiming a hell of a lot of trees planted, from what income? (yes, of course I've not read a single one of their FAQs myself yet, answer me LFGoogleSS)

They get money from clicks on ads as you might expect. Given I don't click on ads very much they probably don't get much from me, but I am here evangelising, so I guess that counts for something

How does Ecosia make money?

Like any other search engine, Ecosia earns money from clicks on the advertisements that appear above and beside the search results.

The advertisements on Ecosia are clearly labeled as Ads and are text links to websites that pay for each click by users. The ads are delivered to you by our partner Bing, who pays Ecosia a share of the revenue generated via these ads.

Ecosia earns a few cents for every click on an ad from Bing – or a portion of the purchase price made through an affiliate link. Ecosia then gives the profits from this ad revenue to planting projects.

We also make a small income on commission from our online store. All profits we receive go towards our projects – which means we can plant 20 trees every time we sell a t-shirt.

How much do you earn per ad click?

How much we earn per click on an ad varies depending on the competition on the key word and the value of what is being advertised. Some search terms like "credit", "bank account" or "solar panel" come with more lucrative ads than, for example, "chocolate" or "sticky notes".

A click on one of the more lucrative keyword ads may finance multiple trees at a time, others may finance a fraction. Taking into account that not every Ecosia user clicks on an ad every time they search, we earn an average of 0.5 cents (Euro) per search.

Does one search finance one new tree?

No, it takes approximately 45 searches to finance the planting of one tree. We know that Ecosia earns an average of 0.5 cents (EUR) per search. It costs our tree planting partners about 0.22 EUR to plant a tree. 22 cents divided by 0.5 cents makes about 45 searches until we can plant one new tree. Depending on clicks on ads and how much search ad revenue these generate for Ecosia, it may take fewer searches. Think of it this way: we currently fund the planting of a new tree every second.

They get money from clicks on ads

People do that?

Apparently. I'm happy to click on them if it's what I wanted anyway

Even if you don't click ads they can say "we've got n users" and negotiate better prices etc. Worth a go I'd say

It costs our tree planting partners about 0.22 EUR to plant a tree.

This doesn't sound much?

🤷‍♂️ I guess a single employee can do one every few minutes. Or maybe they use volunteers.

Might be more detail in the website, but I just reason that some number of trees is better than 0 trees (which is what you get from Google)

I'm still not sure the numbers stack up. How much does each sapling cost them if total cost is €0.22? (Edit: I appreciate I should take this up with them not you)

There's also an argument for rewilding naturally by allowing successional growth to take it's own course, as Monbiot mentions here:

We urgently need more trees, but we appear to believe that the only means of restoring them is planting. We have a national obsession with tree planting, which is in danger of becoming as tokenistic as bamboo toothbrushes and cotton tote bags. In many places rewilding, or natural regeneration – allowing trees to seed and spread themselves – is much faster and more effective, and tends to produce far richer habitats.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/25/rewilding-britains-rainforest-planting-trees

Fine in the sticks (lol, sticks), but my goal for tree planting was to put some of the ones back in the cities that were removed. treesforcities.org or something.

I agree, tree planting is not a panacea. Nothing is unfortunately.

But as I said before, we know for a fact that Google plants 0 trees using any revenue they generate off your searches, so Ecosia can only be better than that. I'm sure they'll have done research on where tree planting is most effective etc. also. I don't think it's in the UK generally, on the website it describes projects in Nicaragua, Uganda, etc.

FWIW I have a lot of ecologist friends, many of them tree people, who all use Ecosia as well

A summer tree planter in Canada can plant 1000-1500 in a single day, which implies that it takes about 30 seconds per sapling. Vice article.